Oh, New York Times….You Can Do Better Than This

The NY Times has a rather ridiculous piece today about how leisure flyers are constantly getting screwed by frequent flyer programs blah blah blah blah blah etc etc etc etc good old days ya ya ya.

My favorite line is this one from someone complaining about award availability:

“I can’t even remember the last time I was able to book a free ticket that didn’t cost 50,000 points, made three stops or left in the middle of the night,”

Wait – THREE flights had award seats available, but the nonstop you happened to want never has any seats available? How is that possible?

That Seattle-based whiner shouldn’t complain – his Alaska miles can be used on Alaska, American or Delta. He has it better than most, no?

Another person is quoted as saying she feels that she has no choice but to take whatever miles she can, “mostly to pay for upgrades so we can get back some of the perks like more legroom that we used to get for free.”

What airline is she using miles for upgrades on? And when did airlines have more legroom in coach than they do now? Every airline offers a chance to buy up for more space – more space than they ever had before…

One interesting tidbit: “In 2012, American sold 66 percent of the 209 billion miles it awarded to frequent fliers that year to partners like Citibank, Starwood and Avis.” I had no idea that partners gave away most of the miles…

I’ll spare you the rest of it, but it just makes me sad that mainstream publications write nonsense whining about how awful frequent flyer programs are while, with just a tiny amount of work, lots of people are racking up miles and using them for award tickets.

The only redeeming point was the nice shout out for Summer at Mommy Points….well done!) who tells people do get off their ass and take a minute to research before joining a frequent flyer program. It just takes a small amount of effort for a large amount of benefit.

1 Comments.

Thanks for the shout out! I guess there is an upside to having some folks not know (or take the time to figure out) how to really use miles and points to their advantage…but we are all here to help if/when they get the itch to learn.